


Technobabble

by poisontaster



Series: Dying is Easy [6]
Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-08
Updated: 2008-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It's just dinner with Jack.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technobabble

"So what did he say?"

John threaded his one tie through his fingers, debating to himself before answering. "He said that he wanted to have dinner. And to be sure to bring you."

"Be _sure_ to bring me?" Matt repeated, his voice getting a little squeaky at the end, amplified by the acoustics of the bathroom. John smiled, since Matt wasn't in the bedroom to see him do it.

"That's what he said," John confirmed, before dumping the tie back into the drawer where it lived. _It's just dinner with Jack,_ he reminded himself. In the normal run of things, John would just show up in jeans and a sweatshirt, anyway. He wasn't a dress up guy. He still wasn't entirely sure what drove him to iron and put on his similarly solitary pair of dress slacks and one of his very few nice shirts, but here he was, looking almost respectable. Go figure. 

"What else did he say?"

John sighed, bored now that his own sketchy grooming was done. He sat on the edge of the bed. He eyeballed the bottle of cologne on his dresser but there was such a thing as taking it too far. It was just dinner with Jack, after all. No big deal. So what if it _was_ the first time he'd see the kid after being outed on national television as a queer? What was Jack going to do, cut off John's allowance? Disown him? Other than keeping John's last name, Jack hasn't had much use for John in years. "That's it. That's all he said."

"Okay, but how did he _sound_ when he said it?" 

_"Matt."_

Matt finally came out of the bathroom, looking geeky and uncomfortable, similarly dressed in freshly pressed black dress slacks and a charcoal button-down. His hair was only half-dry, parts of it slicked to his skull and parts starting to lift up and drift. John kind of wanted to toss him on the bed and lick him. A lot. 

"A tie, kid? Seriously?" John asked, just as if he wasn't having that debate with himself ten seconds ago.

Matt looked down, his blotchy blush breaking out across his face. "What? Too much?"

"It's just dinner with my kid." John tilted his head. "How'd you even get that thing on, with your arm?"

On cue, Matt flexed his shoulder and blanched pure white as the gesture tugged at his gunshot graze. John didn't roll his eyes, but it was a mighty effort on his part. "What...oh, this?" Matt plucked the tie off one-handed and waved it. "It's a clip on."

John snorted and finally got up from the bed, taking his time to saunter over to Matt. He liked the way Matt's eyes got wider and his Adam's apple bobbed with a nervous swallow. John didn't really get off on fear, but there was something about the way Matt looked simultaneously scared and turned on—like he didn't know whether to piss himself or come—that turned John's crank like nothing else. "Of course it is."

When John got closer, Matt swayed forward a little bit, like he didn't even know he was doing it. John didn't think Matt really did. John reached and undid the first couple buttons on Matt's shirt, enjoying the rising heat of Matt's skin, the fluttery tremble of Matt's pulse against his fingers. They didn't have time for shenanigans, even if Matt was physically up to it—which Matt would no doubt say he was, but the want is, in and of itself, nice, curling through John's belly like a fat, well-fed snake. "There." John's voice went deep and pinched as he spread the neck open. "That looks good."

"John—" Matt's voice was thready and embarrassed, the flush on his face deepening all the way up to his hairline. He pushed his fingers under John's, tugging the collar tight again. "I've got... _hickeys_. I don't... He's going to _see_. He'll know..."

"After watching us kiss like a couple horny teenagers on national news, I think Jack's got a pretty clear picture that we're not playing pattycake in our spare time." 

Matt made a face. "Yeah, but..."

John rubbed his thumb across one of the splotchy mauve bruises, pressing the tip in to make it hurt, just enough that Matt's eyes went lazy and deep. "I'm not hiding you from them. I'm not hiding us."

"Yeah, okay, but." Matt took a wavering breath. "There's not hiding it and there's flaunting it. I don't... This is the first time he's meeting me. I don't... It's _weird_ , okay? I don't wanna go in there like his dad's gigolo rentboy."

There was a moment of silence while they both processed that image. 

Matt broke out giggling first but John was only about a breath behind him, small chuckles that ratcheted quickly up into full, whooping, choking guffaws, leaving John breathless and dizzy. He leaned into Matt and Matt leaned right back, the only thing propping either of them up. John's stomach was a mess, but he couldn't stop laughing anyway.

"Oh, God, that hurt," Matt gasped finally. His hurt arm was tucked tight to his ribs and he wiped his eyes with his other hand, cheeks wet with tears. "Where's my sling?"

"Hey." John hooked his fingers through Matt's belt loops and shook him gently to get Matt's attention. Despite the cluster of turning-green bruises marking up the side of his face and the tears, Matt looked happy, still grinning goofily. John had a hard time putting a name to the feeling in his chest to see that look and know he was the one to put it there. 'John McClane' and 'makes people happy' are two phrases that hadn't gone together in a long time, if they ever had. At least since he'd bought Lucy the right My Little Pony when she was six. "It's just dinner with my kid," he repeated, as much a reminder for himself as Matt. "Jack hates me anyway. It's not going to change anything. It doesn't change anything." 

Matt's eyes fell though he nodded. "I know. It's just... He's your son. John McClane Junior. It's a big deal. He's important to you."

John tipped Matt's chin up. "Yeah, he is. But so are you."

Matt nodded again and the smile that came across his face was kind of weak, but his eyes told a whole 'nother story, brightening up to a point where John almost felt blind. He held onto the glow of that look tightly. Time with Jack was always...difficult. John suspected his current good mood was going to be gone all too quick.

***

"...order of General Tso's Chicken. Oh, and moo-shu pork. Yeah. And can I get a Thai iced tea?"

With as much Chinese as Matt ate, John wouldn't think he'd still get so _excited_ about it, but the kid's veins had to be filled with soy sauce or something because every time, it was like he'd never seen or had it before and it was going to disappear. 

The faint smile on John's face fell off abruptly, though, when his gaze crossed Jack's—hard, narrowed and filled with a seething fury that John generally only associated with guys named Gruber. Jack had been grudgingly civil when John had introduced him to Matt, though from the way Matt winced and then subtly shook his hand out afterward, Jack had done his best to crush Matt's fingers. Jack had barely said a word since and John was seriously regretting not pulling him up short from the very beginning. 

It was a new and uncomfortable situation. John had always followed his father's code of family first to the letter, but he wasn't totally sure how to put that plan in action when his 'family' was split in two like this. Jack was his son and John loved him, but Matt… There was no way John could leave Matt to swing. Not and still look at himself in the mirror the next day. 

"So. How's school?" John asked, leaning back against the squeaking vinyl of the booth and stretching his arm out behind Matt. Matt's shoulders hunched a little, but he didn't pull away, leaning his elbows on the table instead.

Jack shrugged, toying with his chopsticks. 

"Your mom said you're probably going to be eligible for early graduation."

Another shrug. The secrets of the freaking universe must be printed on the cheap bamboo for all the attention Jack was giving the goddamn chopsticks. 

A muscle in John's jaw ticked tight but Matt's foot nudged his under the table and John tossed back a mouthful of the hot twig tea instead, wishing it was something a hell of a lot stronger. He had to have been insane to agree to this. Jack hated him. Jack had hated him for years, even before the divorce; a hostility that John had never understood and had pretty much given up hope on. Dinner at some swish restaurant downtown wasn't going to change that, no matter _how_ good the wontons were and John had been a fool if he'd ever thought otherwise. 

A moment later, the waitress brought Matt's hot and sour soup, John's egg rolls and Jack's fried wontons, saving them all from having to make more awkward conversation. If John was a little unnecessarily savage in smearing on the hot mustard, he was sure it was a lot better than picking a fight with Jack in the middle of the restaurant. Clearly he was growing as a person. Or something.

John had a mouthful of _really quite hot_ egg roll and Matt was sipping noisily on his soup when Jack looked up from crumbling one of his wontons to bits and said—out of the freaking blue, "I'm gay."

John choked on his egg roll, some of it possibly going up his nose, and Matt spat hot and sour across the table before breaking out in loud, semi-hysterical and completely inappropriate giggles. "Oh, Jesus." Matt clapped his good hand over his mouth, still laughing through the words. "Oh, God, that's priceless. I'm sorry. I'm totally sorry, but oh, my God. Oh, _my God._ That's hilarious."

John didn't see what was so hilarious about it, and by the look on his face, Jack didn't either though he was glaring at John instead of Matt. John coughed through bits of egg roll, desperately gulping more of the tea. 

"I hate you," Jack said in a low, smoking voice before he shoved himself out of the booth and started to walk away.

"Jack! Jack, wait!" For all his aches and pains, John was fast when he needed to be. He got a handful of Jack's shirt and jerked his son back from his headlong rush. Even with what Jack had said—and John's no stranger to his kids saying they hate him—he doesn't expect the violence with which Jack pushed John's hand away and shoved him back a step. John held up his hands to call a truce. "Look, would you just…come back to the table and talk about this?"

Jack made a bitter-ugly noise that could barely be called a laugh, spreading his hands wide before dropping them to his sides. "What the hell is there to say, Dad? I spent…" Jack's shoulders flexed and he rubbed his hand down the length of his face, sighing. When he opened his eyes, the anger was still there, fierce as the fires that burned the Towers down, but it's tempered with sadness. "I spent my whole life hating myself. Thinking I could never live up to the legend of John fucking McClane, thinking how _disappointed_ he'd be to have a sissy-ass queer for a son, feeling like I had to lie and keep it secret and try to be a better _man_ , like my dad…only to find out that the legendary John McClane is just a faggot himself." Jack's face twisted and John couldn't tell if it was rage or tears. "All these years, Dad. _All these fucking years._ And you couldn't even tell me yourself. I had to find out about it by _watching TV_."

"I didn't mean for you to find out like that," John said lamely, the only part he feels qualified _to_ address. He didn't know what to do with his hands, drifting around with no real direction. 

Jack shook his head and laughed that same unfunny laugh again. "Christ, you are so full of yourself, Dad, you know that? Forget it. Forget the whole fucking thing." Jack turned away and started to walk out.

"I don't know what you want me to say!"

"Let him go," Matt said quietly. John had been busy enough with Jack that he hadn't noticed Matt come up behind him, but he flinched when Matt's hand fell lightly on his shoulder. Matt's fingers fell away again immediately and John kicked himself all over again for all new reasons. "He's not… He can't hear you right now, anyway."

John caught himself just before turning on Matt, but it was a close thing. He felt…churned up and stormy, the mean-dog feeling that made him want to lip-off and get into fights and drink too much. Instead, he just grabbed Matt's forearm—probably too hard, but Matt didn't pull away and John _couldn't_ —hanging on until…

Hanging on until.

Matt's eyes looked old when John finally came back into himself enough to pay attention. _Hey,_ John wanted to say, _That's my job. Who's the old man here?_

He didn't say it. He didn't say anything. Even more slowly, John became aware that most of the restaurant was staring at them, whispering about them. Possibly some of them even recognized him and Matt from the news footage. Matt just kept watching him with those same ancient, worried eyes.

John sighed. "Well. That went better than I expected."


End file.
